Robert Gilliard smiles in an outdoor setting.

Professor Robert J. Gilliard, Jr.

Image courtesy of Professor Gilliard.

Robert J. Gilliard, Jr. Wins 2024 Boron in the Americas Award

by Department of Chemistry |
Categories: Awards, Faculty, Research

Boron in the Americas (BORAM) is an internationally recognized conference venue focused on boron research.

Robert J. Gilliard, Jr., the Novartis Associate Professor of Chemistry, has been awarded the 2024 Boron in the Americas (BORAM) Young Investigator Award, presented at the BORAM XVIII meeting at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He is recognized for his distinguished achievements in the field of boron chemistry and commitment to excellence. The BORAM board members and awards committee decides on awardees based on recent accomplishments and peer nominations. Initially established in 1988, BORAM now attracts an international audience with a shared interest in advancing all areas of research involving the chemical element boron.

Recently, the Gilliard Laboratory published high profile boron research in Nature Chemistry on BN-anthracene and -tetracene cations, which have luminescent properties that rival acene compounds based only on carbon and hydrogen. In a recent Science Magazine paper with the Cummins Laboratory, they showcased the first X-ray crystal structure of a boron-terminal dinitrogen compound, which serves as a borylene precursor. Other interest in the Gilliard Laboratory include the synthesis of complex multi-boron doped radicals, and their borepin research on that topic was recently featured in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Gilliard previously served as a guest editor of a special collection in Chemical Communications on “Boron Chemistry in the 21st Century: From Synthetic Curiosities to Functional Molecules,” which featured 61 articles on topics including boron-mediated small molecule activation, boron clusters, frustrated Lewis pairs, borylation strategies, catalysis, and ligand development.

The Gilliard Lab is engaged in energy-relevant chemical synthesis at the interface of inorganic and organic chemistry that impacts the discovery of new chemical reagents and the design of redox-active and/or luminescent molecular materials.